Long Term Storage

I guess I missed it.. RC2 was released on the 19th.  As I am writing this, I am downloading the latest and greatest from VMWare.  The first thing I notice is HOLY BATBYTES.  The thing is 532MB.  Last I looked, ESX wasn’t 532MB and it is a LOT more server.  It is a freaking OS AND server.  What the hell are they including in this thing?  Now, I agree, that a lot of that size could be symbols and other debuging stuff since this is an RC.  But jebus, 532MB!!!

Anyway.. the download is complete.  Lets proceed with the update!

Download Update- check
unpack update- check
stop vms- check
get cold sweat from the thought of dealing with the WebUI- check

The install is just like all of the others.  Very straight forward and nothing new.  One nice perk though, it didn’t have to compile any modules for my Ubuntu Server.

First complaint.. it did not keep my certificate settings.  It renamed them, but did not retain what I had already.  So this acted more like a reinstall than an upgrade.  :/

Odd.. it did keep some of my other configuration changes though.

A new ‘feature’ to be a gotcha.. everytime they update the plugin for the remote console, you will have to restart your browser.  Nothing like being forced to restart your browswer because you upgraded VMWare on a different box.  At least the console worked after an upgrade.

You lose another point VMWare.

Here is a CRAZY idea.. you already created a browser plugin.. give me the ability to power-on/off, restart, and upgrade vmware tools from it.  Maybe that would be an acceptable compromise to forcing us to use Apache, Tomcat, and a crappy web interface/browser plugin.  GRRR

On the tools upgrade.. I didn’t have to compile the modules.  I know.. that will last probably 2-3 more weeks till the next kernel patch for Ubuntu comes out.

A new feature – VMWare Sync.  A backup solution of some sort.. it states go look at the KB for more info..  LOOKING…..  Nothing found.. That also brings up another interesting point..

Per the release announcement, this is the final RC and it will contain

The RC2 build primarily incorporates fixes that we have incorporated since RC1 was released on July 1. So, no new features…….

It clearly states during the tools install.. this is a new beta feature.  I think someone is confused.

The damn prompting for a client certificate is still there. WTF, over?

All in all.. a smooth update.  They didn’t fix anything that was apparently broken aside from the Remote Console plugin now works with Fx 3.0.1.  How long till it has to be fixed again?

The number one take away is.. Don’t forget to update your console plugin before you get too far into the upgrade.

I have been using Google Hosted apps for my mail domain for over 2 years now and I couldn’t be happier with the service.  It is always available and quite frankly keeps getting better.  Now Google had an email outage yesterday and at latest count, there are over 125 news articles about it along with COUNTLESS complaints.

It befuddles me to think that someone has the rights to bitch about GMail being down for two hours.  A service that most and by most, I mean high 90s percentage do not pay for.  It may even be 99% don’t pay for.  How can you complain about a service that offers soo much for free when it goes down for 2 hours or less?  Is your life/business/etc so critical that you can’t not be with out email for two hours?  Best of all, it was only the web interface that was down for two hours.  You could STILL access it by POP or IMAP.

So I have to ask again, WTF are you complaining about?  If your business relies on a FREE BETA application that much that two hours will have a significant impact to you, then you seriously need to reconsider your IT strategy.  It is no one’s falt but your own if you go out of business for, again with emphasis this time, RELIYING ON A FREE BETA APPLICATION for business critical services.  Period.

I don’t care who you are, what you do, how you do, how much money you make, or who you fuck.  You are frankly an idiot if this makes you mad or damages your business.  And you can quote me on that.

et another item that I do not like about the new VMWare Server 2. The process name. In SErver 1.x you could identify which vm a specific process represented from either a ps or top. It would display something like

/usr/bin/vmware-vmx myvm.vmx

and continue on with some other stuff.  With the upgrade to Server2, the process names have changed and now require extra effort to see which VM is which when the process is running.

My monitor’s resolution is 1680×1050 and this is all I can see of the process line when running top.

“/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx -# product=2;name=VMware Server;version=2.0.0;buildnumber=101586;licensename=VMware GSX Server for Linux;licensever”

Running ps aux shows a few characters less.

This is the full text of the command string.

/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx -# product=2;name=VMware Server;version=2.0.0;buildnumber=101586;licensename=VMware GSX Server for Linux;licenseversion=3.0 build-101586; -@ pipe=/tmp/vmhsdaemon-0/vmxf0587f70a704b094;readyEvent=58 /srv/vmware/host.example.com/host.example.com.vmx

As you can see.. the bit of info that is needed to identify the vm is at the very end.

VMWare, please rearrange the construction of the command that launches the virtual machines to have the configuration file listed at the beginning so we can easily see which VM is which.

NOTE: The easiest workaround is to run “ps aux | grep vmx”, unfortunately, this doesn’t work in top.